Beaupedia

John Pinette was without a doubt one of my absolute favorite comedians. After randomly seeing him on The View many years back, I looked him up online and fell in love with his routines. He died April 5th and I’ve watched his special “I’m Starvin'” many times in the last few weeks.

Still hilarious. His pretend rage, his baby face and hysterical voice all combined into one of my favorite standup acts.

When I talked about the awful situation in Russia in my post a couple of weeks ago, barely anyone was covering the story. I’m glad to see that now has changed, and it’s getting much wider coverage. Still no movement in Russia, but at least the word is out there.

I am sad to report however that news is coming in that indicates the young man whose photo I used in my previous post has died from injuries he sustained while being tortured by the homophobic mob pictured.

According to human rights activist Dr. Valentin Degtyarev, MD, who has been reporting on the “Occupy Pedofilyaj” group, after being tortured and humiliated, the man was beaten with bats and apparently had some sort of liquid foam injected into his body. Dr. Degtyarev reports that no charges have been filed and no arrests have been made.

He also stated that after notifying the authorities of the crimes being committed he was told they could see no wrongdoing in any photos or videos posted by the group and that they consider the group to be one of the local “civil movements fighting the sins of the society.”

These monsters make no attempt to disguise their identities in any of their photos or videos. They feel protected by Russia’s recent laws to criminalize homosexuality. Even telling a child that gay people exist is now a crime.

Above is a video I pulled from one of the group member’s social networking pages before it was take down. It shows the beginning of the incident after fooling the victim into showing up at what was supposed to be another gay man’s home.

I do not know what else to say. I am hoping the information is inaccurate, but fear it likely is not. As more information becomes available I will share it. In the meantime please spread the word and sign this petition: https://www.allout.org/en/actions/russia-attacks

Throughout Russia there are groups of Neo-Nazi assholes emboldened by Russia’s recent anti-gaylaws who are fooling gay teens into meeting up with them only to humiliate, torture, and at least in one case, murder them.

Why aren’t we hearing about this? Even finding links for this post was a bit of a struggle. These guys aren’t hiding their faces. They aren’t wearing ski masks while they commit these awful crimes. Look at them, they’re smiling and they’re fucking proud of what they’re doing. Now that the law basically makes it a crime to be gay, who cares, right?

I’m going to have to agree with Dan Savage on this one, and start boycotting Russian companies that market to the gay community in the western world but do not speak up for our queer brothers and sisters in their own backyard.

In addition, the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia. The pressure needs to start increasing. This needs to be on the front page as the Olympics approach.

Start by signing this petition to call for the freezing of financial assets of those committing these crimes and deny them entry into the US. Secondly, spread the word. This needs to start getting publicity. The world is about to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Russia during the Olympics. We pressured China over their human rights violations when they hosted, and it’s time to do the same for Russia.